


Please hang up and try again.

by murg



Category: Original Work
Genre: Absurdism, Animal Death, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-30 13:57:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6426583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murg/pseuds/murg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My bird is dead. Sophie Chotek comes over for an RC Cola and commiseration. I only give her the RC Cola.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please hang up and try again.

            My bird is dead. Johnson’s men called about refilling the oil tank yesterday, but Polly and I were out of town. There’s a bill stapled to the front door and I go to set it in the kitchen. Three hundred twenty-seven dollars and eighty cents. I find my bird on the bottom of his cage, deflated. There’s bird shit everywhere. It doesn’t smell that bad, not as bad as one would expect. It just smells like shit. That’s all.

            “Is something wrong?” Polly says, standing behind me. She just came out of the bathroom. She smells like wet skin and steam. She smells better than the bird shit. “Oh, ugh, God, what is that?”

            “The bird’s dead,” I say.

            She cranes her neck, eyes bulging. I see her throat working. “What’s he doing on the kitchen table?”

            “I left his cage there,” I say.

            “And he’s dead?”

            “Dead,” I say.

            “Are you gonna clean that up?” Polly can’t stand anything being on the kitchen table. Bird shit is no exception.

            “In a while,” I say.

            Polly looks between the bird shit explosion and me. Then she looks long at me, without any expression. She’s dripping on the carpet, her knuckles tight and stiff over her towel. I’ve told her to stop leaving the bathroom still wet, because we got wood flooring under the carpet and if she drips over everything it’ll rot the floor. But she’s looking at me like I’m doing something wrong.

            “Is something wrong?” I say, turning away from the kitchen table.

            “I really don’t get you,” she says.

            “I don’t get you, either,” I say. “You gotta stop dripping on the floor like that.”

            She twitches her upper lip. She’s going to argue with me but thinks better of it. “I want that thing to be gone when I come back,” she says.

            I shrug.

            “I’m serious. That’s nasty.”

            “Alright.” I give her a loose-handed salute. “Got you. Consider it cleaned up.”

            She looks between us again before turning around to go to the bedroom. I look back at my dead bird.

            There’s bird shit everywhere. It’s like someone squeezed the bird and all of his insides leaked out, except it was all shit, he just burst into shit, and now there’s this deflated bird shit balloon lying on the bottom of the bird cage. Shit confetti.

            My bird is dead. I don’t remember doing anything to him that’d make him blow up into a massive shit bonanza. Most of it’s crusted over the edges and the bottom of the bars, all the way up to the perch. He must have just started shooting shit and fallen down. Some of it still looks wet. I think about touching it.

            Shit fireworks, probably sounded like the Fourth of July in here. I wonder if Johnson’s men heard anything inside when they stapled the bill to the front door.

            The front door rattles. I walk to the screen door, see a woman through the wires. I know the right way to hold my neck when I meet strangers. Sophie Chotek has been a stranger for five years. I wonder if she can smell the bird shit.

            “Hi, Sophie,” I say, holding my neck just so.

            Her eyes rake over me. “Hi, Waldi,” she says.

            “Want to come in?” I say. “What’s got you in town?”

            “Yes, please,” she says, opening the door. The hinges squeal softly. “I was looking for a birthday present for Franz. It’s in a month.”

            “That’s a whole month to look,” I say.

            “You would say that.” She moves past me and I have to turn, following her into my house. She stops when she hits the juncture between the kitchen and the living room. She looks back at me. “Could you grab me a coke?”

            “Sure.” I watch her walk into the living room. She claims the seat closest to the off television. “We got Pepsi and RC Cola.”

            “Cola,” she says. “Thanks.”

            “No problem.” I duck my head into the fridge. Five RC Cola cans, in the back. Polly shoved the milk gallon in front of them.

            “It’s been a mild winter,” Sophie says.

            “Somewhat,” I say.

            “How was your trip?”

            “Good, I think,” I say. “Polly and I had a good time. We haven’t been able to get out of town in a while, what with Polly’s work. Honestly, I prefer day-only outings, I don’t like packing or any of that.”

            “Nice,” she says. “That’s nice.”

            “I think so,” I say.

            “Is Polly home?”

            “Yeah, she’s in the bedroom,” I say. “Want me to go get her?”

            “No, she’ll come down on her own.”

            “Okay.” I hand her an RC Cola. She takes it. She cracks the can open, bringing it to her lips while it’s still fizzing.

            “You gonna sit down?” she says, raising an eyebrow.

            “I gotta go clean up the kitchen before Polly comes down,” I say.

            “Why?” she says.

            I shrug. “My bird died. Left a huge mess all over the place.”

            “Oh,” she says.

            “Yeah,” I say.

            “Do you know what I should get Franz for his birthday?”

            “Not really,” I say. “You must know Franz better than I do, Sophie.”

            “I think I do,” she says, “but maybe I know him too well. I want to get him something he wouldn’t expect.”

            “I’m not sure,” I say. “You should ask Polly. She’s friends with Franz.”

            “Maybe. Things have been very hard for him lately,” she says. “His father has Alzheimer’s.”

            “That’s a bummer,” I say.

            “A tremendous bummer,” she agrees. “Very depressing to think about. He doesn’t remember who Franz is, some days.”

            “Oh man,” I say.

            “I know,” she says. “He’s getting mean, too. He wasn’t always this mean. I don’t understand it.”

            “That sucks,” I say.

            “He says the most racist things, now,” she says, drumming her fingers on the chair arm. “He didn’t used to be a racist. How does that work? Suddenly becoming a racist?”

            “I don’t know,” I say. “I suppose it can happen.”

            Sophie sets her head on her hand, her fingers slipping under her upper lip and pulling it up, revealing her gumline. “I don’t think I can stand it,” she says, muffled.

            “It must suck,” I say.

            Her eyes dart to me. “Franz’s parents have been here for a week now,” she says. “Dealing with things like this can be hard, you must know.”

            “I know,” I say, nodding. It’s hard to nod and hold my neck just right.

            “I can’t go anywhere without his father saying some nasty thing to me,” she says.

            “That’s awful,” I say.

            “And he’s downright mean to Franz,” she says. “He’s awful, he’s terribly mean. I don’t know what to do.”

            “I don’t know,” I say.

            “Maybe he was secretly racist all along.”

            “Maybe,” I say.

            “How do I deal with it?”

            “You’re asking me?”

            “Well,” she says, fingering the lip of her can. “You had a shitty dad, too.”

            “Christ, he didn’t have Alzheimer’s. Since when did having Alzheimer’s make someone a shitty dad?” I say. “And my dad wasn’t shitty.”

            “I’m going to smack him,” she says, “if I don’t find some way to deal with him.”

            “Oh, don’t do that.”

            “Why not?” she says, slipping her fingers out of her mouth.

            “Well, he’s old,” I say. “And you don’t just hit someone’s dad, Sophie.” Dads aren’t hittable. Nor moms. It’s just a kind of rule, probably a Bible rule.

            “So what if he’s old?” she says, looking at me. “Jesus, Waldi, why are you defending some stranger?”

            I hold my neck the right way. “You asked for my advice,” I say.

            “You are so full of shit,” she says. “You can’t really be defending this guy.”

            “Look, Sophie, I need to go clean the kitchen. I’ll go get Polly to talk to you. You’re here for Polly, aren’t you?”

            “Sit down,” she says.

            I sit down.

            “He is shitty,” she says. “He’s very shitty. He told me I’m getting fat. Look at me—I’m a size two. I’m not fat. He asked Franz when he was going to go back to the navy. Franz never even joined the military. He called your wife nasty things when she called me, last week.” She runs a hand down the leg of her pants, gripping her knee. “Honestly, I’m ready to slap him upside head, I’m this close. Honestly.”

            “Well, Sophie,” I say, “you know you can’t do that. Franz would be very upset.”

            “I know,” she says, testy.

            “Well, Sophie, you know,” I say. “You just, ah, you just wait it out. Seriously, he’s old. You can handle it. You just have to remind yourself that you can handle it. It’s the best way to deal with this kind of stuff, or, I mean, so I’ve heard and stuff. Just wait it out. Or you can talk to Franz about it. Don’t hit his dad.”

            That’d be the proactive thing to do, I think. I read about proactive things in a book that Polly bought, once. I never did see her read it. She left it out on the kitchen table, a few years back, and I flipped through it. Recognize your position. Assert your position to your friend or parent or spouse. Then something else. I don’t remember what.

            “How do I let Franz know how I feel about this?” she says.

            “I don’t know,” I say. “I’m not Franz. How close is he to his parents?”

            “He has the kind of relationship that only dreadfully well-adjusted children have with their parents.”

            “Then I don’t know what to tell you,” I tell her. “You should just talk to him about how you feel.”

            “That’s not how communication works,” she says.

            “I suppose not,” I say. I can’t remember the next step in that book. “I have to go clean the kitchen, Sophie.”

            “You can wait,” she says.

            “Sophie, I’m sure it sucks the big one, but I bet Franz’s dad is probably just really frustrated that he’s losing his mind like that. He’s probably scared and stuff. He isn’t some shitty dad. You just said Franz is close to his folks. Look, I’m not really good at talking about this stuff, okay? I got to clean up the kitchen.” I stand up.

            “You’re not helping at all,” she says, sulking into the chair.

            “Okay,” I say.

            “And you did have a shitty dad,” she says. “People can read it off you from miles away. You just scream ‘shitty dad.’ ”

            “He didn’t have Alzheimer’s,” I say. “Franz’s dad isn’t a shitty dad just because he has Alzheimer’s now. And my dad wasn’t shitty.”

            “You had a shitty dad,” Sophie says.

            “Don’t take out your frustration on me,” I say. “You didn’t even know my dad, Sophie. Drop it.”

            “Polly did,” she shoots back.

            I pet the carpet with the heel of my sock. “Sophie, I’ll go grab Polly and she can talk to you. She can help you out more than I can. I gotta clean the kitchen or Polly’ll wring my neck.”

            She lifts her Cola. “Whatever. Fine, go get Polly.”

            “Okay,” I say.

            Polly is doing her make up against the bedroom mirror, running a pencil along her lower lid, making it black. “Something up?” she says, staring at herself.

            “Sophie Chotek’s here,” I say.

            Polly pauses, looking up at me. She has an expression. “What’s she doing here?”

            “In the neighborhood. Avoiding her family, I think. But I don’t know. She needs some advice.”

            “Advice?” Polly snorts, turning back to the mirror. “The day Sophie takes advice is the day I’ll be president. Can’t you shake her out of here?”

            “She says I have a shitty dad,” I say.

            Polly glances at me out of the corner of her eye, her whites very white against her black penciling. She’s thinking about saying something. Instead, she says, “Well, if you don’t like that, tell her to scram.”

            “That’d be rude,” I say.

            Polly grins with her teeth. “Oh man,” she says. “Only you would say that.”

            I wonder how people know what I would and wouldn’t say. Am I really so predictable. Is that a bad thing. “I got to go clean up the kitchen,” I say.

            “You didn’t do that yet?”

            “I was going to, but then Sophie Chotek knocked.”

            “She’s insufferable,” Polly says. “Alright. Look, go talk to her. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

            “You can’t go now?”

            She turns her neck to look at me, skeptical. “Honey. Look at me.”

            I look at her.

            She shakes her head, rolls her eyes. “I’ll be a few minutes.”

            “Okay,” I say.

            Sophie’s waiting for me, the television still off, Cola still on her thigh. “Polly’s busy?” she says.

            “Putting on her face,” I say. “She’ll be right down. Anything I can get you?”

            “I don’t think so,” Sophie says.

            I roll up my sleeves and sit back down, scooting to the edge of my chair. I clasp my hands between my knees. “Alright,” I say. “Why don’t you ask Franz how he feels about his dad?”

            “Why would I do that?” she says.

            “I don’t know,” I say. I think about the book instructions.

            “His dad is a douchebag,” she says. “At least I can admit that. Maybe he wasn’t, once, but he is now. Doesn’t matter what he’s going through. Don’t make excuses for a stranger, seriously.”

            I hold my neck the proper way. I stare at my hands. I think about my dad. I don’t remember anything of note.

            “You’re acting weird,” she says. “What’s got your panties in a knot?”

            I don’t feel like I’ve been acting weird. I shrug. “My bird is dead.”

            She grabs Polly’s pack of cigarettes off the coffee table and fishes one out. She settles it between her lips. She doesn’t light it. “And that’s upsetting?” she says.

            “I think so,” I say. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

            “I can’t stand him,” she says.

            “Stop thinking about it, then,” I say. “Just leave the house. Just avoid him. It’s not that complicated, Sophie.”

            “It’s not that simple, either,” she says.

            No, I guess not.

            “You really don’t get it, do you?” she says. “You’re that bad, huh.”

            “Sophie, I have no clue who Franz’s dad is,” I say. “I don’t really know Franz, for that matter. I’m just telling you that it might not be just how you’re thinking it is.”

            “So what if it isn’t?” she says. “Do you ever let yourself feel a single natural emotion, Waldi? I’m pissed off. I don’t need you sympathizing with a closet racist fuck.”

            “I’m just saying he’s not a shitty dad just because he has Alzheimer’s,” I say. “Having Alzheimer’s doesn’t make you a shitty dad.”

            “Why not?” she says.

            I don’t know. It just doesn’t.

            “You had a shitty dad,” she says.

            “Why the hell do you keep bringing up my dad?” I say. “Stop bringing up my dad, Sophie. I haven’t even seen him in two years.”

            “Why, because you love him so much?”

            “What are you, my therapist? Lay off, Sophie.”

            “No. You don’t need a therapist. Therapists are only for fixable people.”

            “Jesus, Sophie, what is your problem?”

            “I’m worried about Franz,” Sophie says. “I don’t want him to end up like you.”

            “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

            “I called Polly last week and she mentioned how Franz’s dad sounds like yours.”

            No, she didn’t.

            “If you’re trying to get a rise out of me, it isn’t going to work, Sophie,” I say.

            “I am,” she says. “And I will.”

            “Why?”

            “Because you’re insufferable,” she says. “You aren’t a man, Waldi, you’re a malaise. Polly called me last week, crying over you, you know that?”

            “No,” I say, feeling smaller than my skeleton. “That sounds private. Polly probably wouldn’t want you to tell me that, Sophie.”

            “Well, tough,” she says. “Last week it was one thing, it looks like this week it’s another. A dead bird. Really, Waldi? Get over it.”

            “I am,” I say, furrowing my brow. “I’m fine. Sophie, what is your problem?”

            Sophie rubs her RC Cola can against her cheek. Her tongue slithers out to lick the aluminum. Her breath fogs up the logo. “I’m standing up for Polly, I guess. Now’s as good a time as ever: She’s sick of you and your issues. You have too many of those, more than any one person needs.”

            “What do you mean?” I say, knotting my fingers together.

            “Well, that’s telling,” she says, mumbling around Polly’s unlit cigarette.

            “I’ve got to clean the kitchen,” I say, standing up.

            “Alright,” Sophie says, languishing in the chair.

            The kitchen smells bad. It’s worse than I remember. I’m not sure what to make of that, if the bird’s just decomposing or if it smelt that bad initially. Does shit smell worse when it’s dry? I didn’t think it did. Christ, look at me, wondering about the science of shit smells.

            I approach the cage with some level of humility. He was my bird, after all, even if he did die from some whacky shitting syndrome. How did he fit that much shit inside him? Maybe he’s bigger on the inside. I think that’s impossible, though. I don’t really know.

            “He really is dreadful, Franz’s father,” Sophie says, in the doorway. “I just thought you’d understand. This is why I don’t talk to you. You never understand.”

            “Christ, Sophie, let it go,” I say.

            “He’s so dreadful,” she says. “He forgets where he is. He’s nasty.”

            “So what?” I say. “That sucks, Sophie, believe me, that sucks, but you can let it go anytime you want.”

            “That’s what you like to think,” she says.

            “I do,” I say. I open up the cage and reach in.

            “Of course you do. It’s easy for you. You’re the biggest liar there is. Fine, sit and stew. You’ll blow up eventually, I mean, we all do,” she says. “The rest of us have sob stories, but you won’t say shit.”

            My bird’s feathers are very soft under my fingers, he is very soft in my grip. I have no clue how he died. He is covered in shit.

            “Shit,” I say.

            Sophie laughs.

            I wonder if this is Hell.

            “An old, broken down Crown Victoria,” she croons.

            “What the hell are you talking about?”

            Sophie Chotek chortles. “I’m a fucking avenging angel, Waldi. You’re a dirty little maggot and nobody likes you. I’m all your shitty gross thoughts wrapped up in human flesh, like a mummy.” She puffs her lips around Polly’s cigarette. Spit dribbles down her chin, coating her neck, slipping over her collarbone and under her shirt. “Boo.”

            “Shut the fuck up,” I say, feeling terribly bitter and not really knowing why. I think of the book on the kitchen table, years ago. Assert. Assert. Emotions are reactions. To what? I don’t know what. There’s a disconnect. I turn toward the front door, but there’s Sophie blocking the way and she isn’t moving. “Sophie, get out of my house.”

            She smiles with teeth. Assert.

            My fingers clench slightly and I feel wet shit slide against my knuckles. Some primal part of me tries to activate my gag reflex. I jerk.

            Shit, boom, right across the room. Right across Sophie Chotek’s shirt, right over her breasts. She squeals.

            “Holy shit!”

            I watch her bat at it and then cringe when it’s on her hands, little white goop trickling across the web between her fingers.

            “How did he die?” I say.

            She gapes, staring between the shit on her shirt and me.

            “I don’t know,” I say.

            Green shirt, white shit. His feathers are soft, brushing against all the secret crevices of my hand, places I’ve never been touched. I have never held him like this before. Shit on my sleeve. Shit on Sophie Chotek.

            The front door swings open and shut, the hinges screeching, the screen flapping and shouting.

            I stumble forward, my bird in my hand. I unhinge the phone from its place on the wall. I dial the vet’s number, area code, town code, 9976. The bird wobbles in my grip as I punch in the numbers. Shit spurts out. I slam my temple against the phone, holding it between my ear and the wall.

            “Hello, this Green Mountain Veterinary Clinic.”

            “My bird is dead,” I say.

            “I’m sorry, sir?”

            “My bird,” I say, “is dead.”

            “Sir, this is a veterinary clinic.”

            “I just have to know how he died,” I say, readjusting. There’s fluid on my brain. It’s spit. I blink it out from behind my eyeballs. “He, uh, my bird, my wife and I left town yesterday and when I came back, boom, shit everywhere. Just covered in shit.”

            “Sir, I can’t help you with that.”

            “He’s covered in shit,” I say, louder. “He shat himself to death. How the hell do you die that way? How the hell do you die, shitting yourself to death? How did he have that much shit in him, anyways? What the fuck is going on?”

            “Sir, I can’t help you, I am going to hang up now, if you have any concerns about a living animal, please call us.”

            “He’s covered in his own fucking shit,” I say. “That’s got to be one of the worst ways to go, Jesus fucking Christ, can you imagine shitting yourself to death? How do you do that?”

            “I don’t know, sir, please have a nice day.”

            Dial tone.

            I slide down the wall, squeaking the whole way. I lay my head against it. It grips my hair and drags my neck up. My collarbone aches. The dial tone echoes and winds over and over itself in my ear. There’s a horror cushioned by my slithering intestines, curling over and over as I bend at the hip. I twist the cord over and over my fingers, over and over.

            I set him down in front of me, his shitty asshole facing me. It’s still leaking.

            Dial tone.

            I hear Polly come downstairs. “Wally, honey?” she says.

            Her footsteps stop.

            “Wally, what are you doing?” she says, voice soft.

            I wind the telephone cord over and over around my fingers and I grit my teeth and I wipe my eyes on my sleeve, my shitty stinking sleeve.

            Dial tone.

            She turns the lights on, even though it’s daytime. She doesn’t say anything about the shit on the floor. I can hear her bare feet padding across the linoleum. She crouches next to me, puts her hands on my arm. She smells like her vanilla perfume. It mixes with the shit smell and my throat gags. “Waldi, honey?”

            “The vet doesn’t know,” I say. “He just blew up in a literal shitstorm.”

            “Oh,” she says.

            “He just blew up,” I say. “A literal shitstorm. Literally, a shitstorm.”

            “Uh huh,” she says.

            “A shitstorm,” I say.

            “Yeah,” she says.

            “Are you disappointed in me?” I say, playing with the telephone cord.

            “No,” she says, blinking with no expression. I believe her.

            “I didn’t have a shitty dad,” I say. Winding it over and over, tighter and sharper. My hand is covered in shit. “I didn’t.”

            “Okay,” she says.

            “My bird is dead.”

            She reaches over and winds her little fingers through my shit-covered, phone-tangled hand. Skin against my skin. The plastic wiring digs into my palm. My joints bend, dried shit flaking. She looks down at him with me. “I’m sorry, Waldi.”

            His leaking asshole.

            “He just had too much shit inside of him,” she says. “That’s all.”

            “Yeah,” I say.

            That’s all.


End file.
